Odd research

I was helping my cousin out with his research paper at a Barnes and Noble. He was reading mostly and i started reading the latest HockeyNews periodical for April 6th. Not much written on the Ducks, outside from the stats at the end. And that's when i started this weird research that prolly most people know anyhow. Plus, i recall Hazee ( Brian Hayward- color analyst for the Ducks) saying that it was the 3rd and 4th line not producing or holding up their end for scoring. And so a long research ensued. (oh yeah, i'm on spring break and no hockey till Wed... which means i'm just bored out of my wits)

Bit of Info from THN:
Netminder/ GAA W L T SO Save %
Bryz 2.00 1 0 0 0 .929
Gerber 2.28 11 10 4 2 .916
Giguere 2.65 16 29 6 3 .914
Total/avg 2.58 28 39 10 5 .912
*** that's out of 77 games only.

From that same periodical, there are only 8 teams that have better overall Save %.
team sv%/GAA
Fla .925/2.57 (out of playoffs)
Min .923/2.17 (out of playoffs)
SJ .922/2.23
Mtl .920/2.25
Bos .919/2.21
NJ .917/2.00
Cal .915/2.15
Col .915/2.36

* From this, we can tell that Fla and Minn are in the same boat we are: good netminding, but terrible offenses. HA! Call that an understatement.
JS and Gerber are in the top 18 for save %. Gerber is ranked #16 for GAA. Could be some leverage for trade bait of some kind if Murray should be forced to make a trade.

Anyhow, I got back from the bookstore and did more research online from ESPN.com. b/c now it'll account for all 82 games.

Gerber's #'s are slightly better with .918 sv % and 2.26 GAA.
JS was .914 and 2.62.

Hence, our netminding was more than adequate.
******** Special Teams **************
Penalty kill Ranked 12th @ 84.7% efficiency
Power Play Ranked 7th @ 18.1% efficiency

These are decent rankings. Our assistant coaches are on the ball!

Hence, our special teams were more than adequate.
********** TEAM STATS ***************
Total Goals Allowed: 213, 19th ranked best
GAA : 2.60, 19th ranked best
Total Goals For : 184, 28th ranked best ( 29 Clb, 30 Car)
Goals/Game Avg : 2.24 28th ranked best (29 Clb, 30 Car)

******** Top 3 and 4 Goal Scorers Comparison *********
Name Goals Assists Pts Ranking Overall for Pts(Goals and Assists)
Fedorov 31 34 65 28
Sykora 23 29 52 65
Rooch 20 23 43 116
Prospal 19 35 55 54

Top 3 goal scorers total: 74
Pct of team scoring: 40%
Top 4 goal scorers total: 93
Pct of team scoring: 51%

Four players scoring over 50% of the teams total goals. Maybe Hazee does have a point about our depth scoring more. Well, to make sure that this is a rare case, i scouted out the top 12 goal scoring teams and four more Western Conf teams.
Rank/ Team/Goals/ top 3/ pct/ top 4/ pct /Conf (W/E)
1.....Ott......262....99.....38%...121...46%...E
2.....Det......255....80.....31%...104...41%...W
3.....TB.......245....99.....40%...125...51%...E *
4.....Tor......242....81.....33%...102...42%...E
5.....NYI......237....74.....31%....96...40%...E
6.....Col......236....93.....39%....112...47%..W **
7.....Van.....235....75.....32%.....92...39%...W
8.....Phi......229....73.....32%.....93...41%...E
9.....Edm....221.....63.....29%.....79..36%...W
10...Buf......220....79.....36%.....97...44%...E
11...SJ.......219....78.....36%.....99...45%...E
12...Nsh.....216....65.....30%.....81...38%...W
18...LA.......205....63.....31%.....79...39%...W
19...Cal......200....76.....38%.....93...47%...W ***
20...Dal......194....79.....41%.....94...48%...W ****
21...StL......191...70......37%.....84...44%...W

There's only ONE team that matched us (from the above stats only... i got tired after a while) in top 3 AND top 4 production. TB definately has some goal scorers! And then three others that are close to our production: Colorado ( we know they're top heavy with talent ), Calgary ( 41 points belong to Iginla ), and Dallas ( they've got top end talent too...Guerin/Arnott )

Hence, our top 3/4 scorers are adequate.

We aren't all that bad in our top goal scorers dept. So Hazee was right with his statement that we need everywhere else to produce. 28th in goals scored was our demise. But there's more depth in it than simply blaming our top guys not producing. They may have not produced enough, but they did produce more than their fair share for the team. Maybe our defense didn't produce enough? Ozo only played 36 games and racked up 16 points, 5 goals/11 assists. Our best offensive output d-man was Havelid with 26 points in 79 games, 6 goals/20 assists... considering that Ozo was our 3rd highest scorer on the team last year. LoL

So Depth was an issue for this season.
Quality depth like a healthy Leclerc and Nieds would have put up more points and grit. It was their grit what was missing most. Having Getzlaf next year is promising and maybe that new kid Glencross. Chistov disappearing like that was just terrible.

Quality depth on our blueline just in case a Carney or Ozo goes down. (Skoula was a nice pick up for a defenseman, but we need a stalwart in case Carney goes down.)

So maybe Murray was right with not tinkering with this team. He prolly noticed that Carney and Rooch were playing hurt, but had too much pride to be taken out from the ice. That and maybe we didn't have quality depth if they were injured. Which was true. Leclerc and Nieds were injured too much to take up the slack Rooh would have made. No blueline help at all if Carney would be taken out. We've seen the slide in play w/o him in the line up.

So Gerber for a blue line special or quality veteran? LoL Having two extra months should help with full recovery as well this off-season.

K... that's the end of my research tirade. Hope i didn't bore ya'll too much.

It's easy to put a bulk of the blame on Jiggy this season and he definitely deserves some of it.....but not all of it.

It's easy to put a bulk of the blame on Jiggy this season and he definitely deserves some of it.....but not all of it.
nice research btw..
but yes.. Jiggy had some blame and our D gets most of the blame..
i do like the fact we got Skoula now... at first i hated the transaction, but he seemed to turn out good.. and hope he comes back next season..

You're research is fine but your interpretation leaves a lot to be desired.

Hence, our netminding was more than adequate.

No, what it means is that Giguere had enough good performances over the course of the season to have an average save percentage and a bad GAA despite his early poor play. We all watched him stink up the rink. You can't make that go away by playing with numbers.

******** Special Teams **************
Penalty kill Ranked 12th @ 84.7% efficiency
Power Play Ranked 7th @ 18.1% efficiency

These are decent rankings. Our assistant coaches are on the ball!

Hence, our special teams were more than adequate.

Do you work for Disney? We did live and die by our special teams since our even strength play was atrocious, but you're overestimating the importance of the rank value for the power play because our power play was largely a non-factor. We were 29th in total opportunities, meaning that we needed a good 4 or 5 percent more success for the power play to have a meaningful positive influence. The lack of opportunities is another example of poor play: they weren't working enough to draw penalties.

Hence, our top 3/4 scorers are adequate.

You made a really weird leap here. Our top 3/4 goalscorers were amongst the lowest in the league in terms of total goals based on your numbers. If you check the top teams, our bottom six would actually have had to outscore our top six in order for our offense to be on par. I never really expected that from Pahlsson, McDonald, Leclerc, etc. Did you? That would make them the top 6. Now, either you consider Fedorov, Rucchin, Prospal, and Sykora 3rd liners, or you're being a little too forgiving. All 4 had mild to drastic declines in offensive production from previous seasons. And again, think back to what we all saw. Are you really happy with how they played?

Maybe our defense didn't produce enough? Ozo only played 36 games and racked up 16 points, 5 goals/11 assists.

He only played 31 games last year here and yet had 18 points. Ozo's numbers pro-rate to 36 points, well below his career average of 55.

Our best offensive output d-man was Havelid with 26 points in 79 games, 6 goals/20 assists... considering that Ozo was our 3rd highest scorer on the team last year.

I'm not sure what that means. Ozo was not our 3rd leading scorer, he only played here 31 games. All the points he racked up prior to coming here obviously didn't help us win any games. Ozo this year was basically the same as Ozo last year. You're right about Havelid's drop in production, yet another top player letting us down.

Our defense produced 93 points this season compared to 115 last...most of that drop can be attributed to Carney, since he went from 22 to 7. 22 points was a huge surprise, though, so it's not like he let us down in that regard.

I don't know what team you watched. Maybe you didn't. Maybe we all should have turned the TV off. I wish I could hug the stat book to my chest like you and tell myself "it wasn't that bad a year" but it was. Everyone let us down, and the best players take the most blame.

Ehhh... can we finish witht he talk of this horrible team. I just want to put this season behind us.

The bottom line is this team should be in the playoffs and is not. Why because of lack of chemistry/charachter/heart.

So I look for BM to go into this offseason looking for great team guys who give 100% every game. Even if in these trades we are going to make we lose some skill.

Its one thing to follow this team in past years when we didn't have the skill to compete, but it is above and beyond worse when you have the skill and none of the players seems to care about working hard on a daily basis.

Ehhh... can we finish witht he talk of this horrible team. I just want to put this season behind us.

The bottom line is this team should be in the playoffs and is not. Why because of lack of chemistry/charachter/heart.

Hey, for whatever reason, we didn't make the playoffs b/c we didn't deserve it. Babcock thought he wouldn't do what the Angels did, but it's the players that have to believe it.

Am I sad that we're not in the playoffs? No. We deserve not to be in it. There were plenty of times the team would slack off, rather than play all 60 mins and thensome if need be. Anyhow, why would i want to see a first round exit anyhow?

We'll be better next year. We found out some kinks and we'll fix them.

You're research is fine but your interpretation leaves a lot to be desired.

No, what it means is that Giguere had enough good performances over the course of the season to have an average save percentage and a bad GAA despite his early poor play. We all watched him stink up the rink. You can't make that go away by playing with numbers.

I'm saying that after All-Star break, JS caught on fire like our usual JS of last year and the year before. We still had a chance to make the playoffs, but our offense didn't pull through. Even Gerber would pull some spectacular games, but our lack of offense didn't come through.



Do you work for Disney? We did live and die by our special teams since our even strength play was atrocious, but you're overestimating the importance of the rank value for the power play because our power play was largely a non-factor. We were 29th in total opportunities, meaning that we needed a good 4 or 5 percent more success for the power play to have a meaningful positive influence. The lack of opportunities is another example of poor play: they weren't working enough to draw penalties.

Pointing out that the team performed on special teams. It's on our five on five where we were atrocious. I'm trying not to pin our mishaps b/c we didn't or did get a call from the refs.


You made a really weird leap here. Our top 3/4 goalscorers were amongst the lowest in the league in terms of total goals based on your numbers. If you check the top teams, our bottom six would actually have had to outscore our top six in order for our offense to be on par. I never really expected that from Pahlsson, McDonald, Leclerc, etc. Did you? That would make them the top 6. Now, either you consider Fedorov, Rucchin, Prospal, and Sykora 3rd liners, or you're being a little too forgiving. All 4 had mild to drastic declines in offensive production from previous seasons. And again, think back to what we all saw. Are you really happy with how they played?

Huh? Ducks top 3- 74pts
Western Conf teams top 3:
Det 80
Col 93
Van 75
Edm 63
SJ 78
Nsh 65
LA 63
Cal 76
Dal 79
StL 70
The avg of these 10 teams top 3 is 74.5pts. Right where our top 3 are at.
Ducks top 4 - 93pts
Det 104
Col 112
Van 92
Edm 79
SJ 99
Nsh 81
LA 79
Cal 93
Dal 94
StL 84
The avg of these 10 WESTERN teams' top 4 is 91.7.
Surprisingly, these teams all happen to be ranked BETTER than the Ducks for GFA(Avg goals scored per game)

Let's say i take out the top two teams and the bottom two teams for a better median of goals made:
for top 3: avg is 70.0
for top 4: avg is 87.2
Hmmm.... i guess the those teams depended on someone else besides their top guys. Heck, Calgary has Iginla with 41 pts with no one else on the team getting more than 18 goals. LoL



I don't know what team you watched. Maybe you didn't. Maybe we all should have turned the TV off. I wish I could hug the stat book to my chest like you and tell myself "it wasn't that bad a year" but it was. Everyone let us down, and the best players take the most blame.

I watched, taped and went to many games. I don't know why you're attacking me. I do feel like this year was bad b/c we didn't perform every minute. But the whole point of my research was b/c of what Hazee mentioned about our top guys needed help in the scoring dept from the rest of the team. I'm not just do what you do and say " we suck, we suck, we suck and now let's get this guy or that. " Anyhow, what Hazee said had merit. I did the work. If you want, you can go to ESPN.com, find the link for stats and calculate each of those teams that i went thru. Don't make yourself almighty and exclude yourself from having DEPTH with an issue.

This post was about me being bored and wanted to see if Hazee was right. I'm not discussing about chemistry, lack of playing, or the eye sore i witnessed many-a-nites. We ranked 28th in GFA and our top goal scorers are on par with many other teams in the Western Conference. So where do we get more goals or how do we get more goals? Even NJ is ranked ahead of us at #14.

Stumpy propelled our team last year with his 10 goals in 12 games, but also spurred on Sami and Stan on the third line. Nieds added depth to our healthy line up last year( that was with Leclerc playing )
PK-Oates-Sykora
Leclerc-Rooch-Nieds
Stan-Sami-Stumpy
Andy-Krog-Kjellberg/Chewy

Maybe having a healthy Leclerc and a scoring Chistov(12goals last year) may help. Maybe acquiring a veteran forward a la Stumpy to keep this team in check and working like Hazee had mentioned. This team is missing scoring depth. Last year, the team scored 203 points ( if i added correctly ). That's -19 goal difference from this year.
BTW... last year's top 3 had a total of 79 pts, top 4 of 91 pts. Apparently, someone outside the top 4 scored those 19 goals. Heh.

If you ask me why the Ducks didn't win games, it's because they're bad shooters. How many times did the Ducks get over 40 shots and 2 or less goals? They often made the other team's goalie the first star of the game. Why? Because they would work themselves into great scoring chances only to put the puck right on the goalie's logo. There are only 2 forwards on this team that can beat a goalie from outside the crease. Fedorov and Lupul. No one else can. If you look at a team like Detroit, they score on the exact same shots that the Ducks get 'robbed' on. I say they cut out that faceoff bull**** and work on shooting.

The poor shooting really puts the Ducks in a bad position once they're down.

There are only 2 forwards on this team that can beat a goalie from outside the crease. Fedorov and Lupul. No one else can.

This is a pretty good point...although when he's going well Sykora can shoot with the best of them he just hasn't shown it this year for whatever reason. Ozo has a good shot too but I think his is more based on the element of surprise than speed/accuracy.

If you ask me why the Ducks didn't win games, it's because they're bad shooters. How many times did the Ducks get over 40 shots and 2 or less goals? They often made the other team's goalie the first star of the game. Why? Because they would work themselves into great scoring chances only to put the puck right on the goalie's logo. There are only 2 forwards on this team that can beat a goalie from outside the crease. Fedorov and Lupul. No one else can. If you look at a team like Detroit, they score on the exact same shots that the Ducks get 'robbed' on. I say they cut out that faceoff bull**** and work on shooting.

The poor shooting really puts the Ducks in a bad position once they're down.
Absolutely. We couldn't hit a bull in the ass with a banjo -- especially Sykora.

Ehhh... can we finish witht he talk of this horrible team. I just want to put this season behind us.


If we want to analyze what went wrong with this season, I see nothing in the Hockey's Future bylaws that outlaws that.

If we want to analyze what went wrong with this season, I see nothing in the Hockey's Future bylaws that outlaws that.

I didn't stop anyone from posting on this subject did I? I just voiced my opinion.

But thanks for the lecture.

I didn't stop anyone from posting on this subject did I? I just voiced my opinion.

But thanks for the lecture.
Whatever. You gave me a similar lecture when I dared to point out the futility of analyzing potential draft picks.

I too think that the research is fine, but the conclusions are off. Sure, we were good enough on the power play and penalty kill. But we didn't draw nearly enough penalties on the other team. I think this is due to our lack of hard work. It just seems, I have no proof of this, that when a team is hard working they tend to draw a lot more penalties.

I don't see how you can come to the conclusion that our top 3/4 scorers are adequate. When your top scorer, Fedorov scores 65 points, and just over 30 goals...how is that adequate? Our top scorers...Fedorov, Sykora, Prospal, Neidermayer, Leclerc underacheived. Granted Leclerc and Neidermayer were due to injuries. And Prospal was great, but in spurts. But Fedorov mildly underachieved, and Sykora grossly underachieved. That's not adequate.

I too think that the research is fine, but the conclusions are off. Sure, we were good enough on the power play and penalty kill. But we didn't draw nearly enough penalties on the other team. I think this is due to our lack of hard work. It just seems, I have no proof of this, that when a team is hard working they tend to draw a lot more penalties.

I don't see how you can come to the conclusion that our top 3/4 scorers are adequate. When your top scorer, Fedorov scores 65 points, and just over 30 goals...how is that adequate? Our top scorers...Fedorov, Sykora, Prospal, Neidermayer, Leclerc underacheived. Granted Leclerc and Neidermayer were due to injuries. And Prospal was great, but in spurts. But Fedorov mildly underachieved, and Sykora grossly underachieved. That's not adequate.

Fedorov played below our expectations, but he played right at everyone else's. I think THN's prediction for him was around 62, so he did good.

Well, the whole % of team scoring thing is a misleading stat anyways. There weren't enough goals period. The Ducks' top players weren't scoring enough. Just because the bottom players weren't scoring either doesn't give the top a free pass. Everyone sucked, but I think it comes down to poor shooting/positioning.

Whatever. You gave me a similar lecture when I dared to point out the futility of analyzing potential draft picks.

Well if I did my bad, I have never wanted to make someone feel as though they can't post on any subject. I think what I was trying to do is point out that draft picks are wildcards no matter where picked. But I would have to go back and check out the context of what we were speaking on.

I too think that the research is fine, but the conclusions are off. Sure, we were good enough on the power play and penalty kill. But we didn't draw nearly enough penalties on the other team. I think this is due to our lack of hard work. It just seems, I have no proof of this, that when a team is hard working they tend to draw a lot more penalties.

I don't see how you can come to the conclusion that our top 3/4 scorers are adequate. When your top scorer, Fedorov scores 65 points, and just over 30 goals...how is that adequate? Our top scorers...Fedorov, Sykora, Prospal, Neidermayer, Leclerc underacheived. Granted Leclerc and Neidermayer were due to injuries. And Prospal was great, but in spurts. But Fedorov mildly underachieved, and Sykora grossly underachieved. That's not adequate.

To me this sums up exactly what our problem has been. Hard work and effort mixed in with some chemistry. Or lack there of.

All you have to do is look to the Flames to see what it takes, shoot just look back to the effort this team put forth last season. The skill is there, the effort for whatever reason is not. And it starts at the top and trickles down. Guys like Fed,Prospal and Sykora need to sacrifice themselves for the team. To show everyone else they are willing to do anything to get a win.

They clearly didn;t show that this past season. We can compute numbers all offseason but where the problems lie are with something that doesn't show up on the stat sheet.

The Flames are a one-trick pony just like the Wild were last season, except instead of speed their trick is hitting.

The Flames are a one-trick pony just like the Wild were last season, except instead of speed their trick is hitting.

Well as of now so were we....

My point was that despite the lack of talent for the last few years that team has been known as a team that works hard every shift. Even before this year's sucess. And other than last season seems to be something we have been lacking since the first few years after expansion.

The Flames are a one-trick pony just like the Wild were last season, except instead of speed their trick is hitting.

Iginla dominated that series vs Vancouver. He was great in game 7.

Gaborik had a lot of dominant performances, too, before he ran into a hot goalie.

To me this sums up exactly what our problem has been. Hard work and effort mixed in with some chemistry. Or lack there of.

All you have to do is look to the Flames to see what it takes, shoot just look back to the effort this team put forth last season. The skill is there, the effort for whatever reason is not. And it starts at the top and trickles down. Guys like Fed,Prospal and Sykora need to sacrifice themselves for the team. To show everyone else they are willing to do anything to get a win.

They clearly didn;t show that this past season. We can compute numbers all offseason but where the problems lie are with something that doesn't show up on the stat sheet.
Funny I was thinking the same thing about the Flames. Whether or not they are a one trick pony (they may be) they do work hard and drive the net. They score more ugly goals than pretty ones...but that's what it takes to win, and that's why they're up 1-0 in round 2 against the Wings, and the Ducks are working on their golf game.